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Experience the thrill of aggressive racing in GRIDCodemasters is well known as one of the leaders in the racing game market, but with the PGR, Forza and Gran Turismo series all leading the way the UK-based publisher needed Race Driver: GRID to be something special. With the most impressive visuals ever to grace a racing game, brilliant variety and game-making rewind feature GRID is everything we wanted it to be and quite possibly the racing game of 2008.
GRID sees you driving for a new racing team. To begin with you need to earn enough cash to buy your team's first car, and from then on it's all about earning cash and reputation points. Cash buys cars needed to enter new events and reputation points add up to earn new licences and access to new event tiers. Essentially, if you place on the podium regularly you'll soon be raking in the money and rep.
AdvertisementThings aren't quite as simple as they seem though. The events are split into three territories: USA, Europe and Japan. Your cash is put into a global pot, but your rep points are territory specific. So, you could focus on the drift and head-to-head race events found in Japan, achieve a new license and access to a new tier of events in that territory, but still be languishing in the beginner races in Europe and the USA. How many rep points you earn also depends on the difficulty settings you choose to race with.
Choosing harder AI racers, a fixed in-car view and disallowing race restarts all increase the potential rep points, but a harder difficulty also affects one of GRID's core gameplay features: flashbacks. At any point during a race you can pause the game and rewind back a few seconds, with the number of times you're allowed to do so being determined by the difficulty you've set - four by default. At first this magical ability seems like a copout, but it makes complete sense given GRID's arcade-style racing.
The in-car view looks great, but it's for real pros.While previous games in the Race Driver series have been pretty hard to get into due to the simulation handling, GRID feels far more like PGR than Gran Turismo. In fact, it feels slightly more forgiving than PGR's already quite flashy driving model. With an emphasis on speed and some rather competitive AI drivers you're going to be having a lot of fun, but will also find yourself buried in a tyre wall fairly often. Heavy crashes can even result in your car being totalled, so being able to rewind is a huge relief.
Whereas in other racers you might take your foot off the pedal during tricky sections of track, perhaps settling for second place instead of first, in GRID you feel compelled to go for the win. Instead of worrying about every corner, you're free to drive how you really want, which actually has a very beneficial effect on your performances. The initially twitchy controls soon fade into the distance as you scream around each track, often not even thinking about flashbacks.
Although the early parts of your career will see you racing in the bottom rung of cars available in the game, you can accept freelance offers from other teams to earn some extra cash. These offers always see you driving in a high-powered car. One of the best examples of this is the yearly Le Mans 24-hour race - shortened to 12 minutes of game time. Unless you want to fork out for a proper racing beast your best option is to drive freelance for another team, hoping to place in the top three in your class. With a full day and night cycle winning this race is seen as the pinnacle of your racing career.
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Gordo01 wrote at 10:59 on 27 May 2008
I agree about the twitchy controls i got the demo. But once used to it its a quality racing game, Looks like it will be good with the steering wheel. So glad this game will be out. AS good as PGR is the online is annoying with all the bashers. At least With GRID all will be punished. Cant wait.
Wido wrote at 11:50 on 27 May 2008
What I don't like is when the camera, if your looking at the behind of the car view. Goes with the car when tackling a turning, its quite annoying that but I don't really use that view that often. Good game, its another forza in the making and hopefully the main game it self would be good.
Mark wrote at 14:50 on 27 May 2008
Mediocre graphics. Put screenshots side by side with GT and it's not even close. What's worse is the resolution and frame-rate are much worse as well.
Pathetic arcade physics.
Fun to crash.
goldberg wrote at 15:49 on 27 May 2008
Mark your an idiot if that is really what u think, grid puts gran turismo too shame as far as evrything ,A.I ,graphix ,gameplay experience and soo on ,youve gotta be taking the piss!!!???
grid blocked wrote at 15:58 on 27 May 2008
Mark LOL get back to ur £20 demo u crank
Anonymous wrote at 16:59 on 27 May 2008
mark is a gt fanboy who knws that grid is far superior he feels threatened lol...its only a game you muppet...gt=pathetic boring A.I and insomnia curing gameplay lol
Dee wrote at 20:58 on 27 May 2008
This man is on crack..........Nuff said
Legoman wrote at 00:05 on 28 May 2008
lol mark you clearly only own a ps3 and cant afford a machine that can run this at DX10 at 1900x1000 resolution which totally destroys the graphics on GT theres soo much more detail at distance , screenshots dont show what makes a pc much more powerful than a console hence the price difference , £250 for a console or £2000 for a pc hmmmmmm... obvious which has the more powerful technology.
out wrote at 01:54 on 28 May 2008
To be honest, you can get totally kick ass PC for about two to three times the price of PS3. Q6600, P35, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 8800GTX or 3870X2 your pick. Machine like that totally trashes PS3 on every level in games.
And of course PC is much more versatile a machine that you can use for dozens other things.
Nuff said
Genghis Kant wrote at 11:46 on 28 May 2008
To be fair, whilst Grid is great fun and looks great it's not the same thing as GT5:P. GRiD is 30fps; GT5:P is 60fps. GRiD is an arcade racer and not remotely realistic; GT5:P is a sim and very realistic. Both are excellent but are quite different. And remember GRiD is available on the PS3 and 360.
sidney1980 wrote at 13:12 on 28 May 2008
i have both a 360 & ps3 & have played both versions of the grid demo. the 360 version is superior in almost every way. its smoother, no image tearing which the ps3 version suffers from at times. the 360 version also has better graphics, resolution, etc... i think mark must have a ps3 or he wouldnt b saying that. the looks really dont stand out on ps3 wheras the 360 version is 1 of the most stunning games ive ever seen in full 1080p hd! bring on friday!!
snakeater wrote at 16:22 on 28 May 2008
i hav played on both console versions of the demo and can honestly say the ps3 is far superior. The graphics only jus edge it but the controls and gameplay are alot smoother and feel more like a racing game.
kreator wrote at 18:54 on 28 May 2008
A M A Z I NG
Chris wrote at 08:23 on 29 May 2008
Got PS3 and PC. Brought on PC as it's only £19.99!
I thought the demo was pretty similar on both PS3 and PC.
PC cranked uptoo ultra settings with 4xfsaa @ 1280*1024, with the AA i'd say the PC edges over the console versions for a jaggy-less experience that runs at an unlocked frame rate always over 50fps minimum.
AMD X2 6000+ Radeon HD3850 OC edition, 4gb ram, Vista64.
frankly wrote at 11:19 on 29 May 2008
ithe 360 version is slightly better. its much smoother, & the 360 pad was definitely designed with racin games in mind as it feels more comfortable. the main difference 4 me was the resolution, which is only 720p on ps3. it luks more "jaggy-edged" with the 360 version smooth as can be in 1080p. however, all 3 versions rock, so whatever console or computer u have, u must own this game!
Jason wrote at 12:23 on 29 May 2008
Mark, I own and have owned every single car racing sim on this planet in the last 10 years. I have a 360, PS3 (only for Blue ray) and a ultra high end PC. I was very dissapointed in the new gran turismo, (Cars handle well, Graphics HD resolution not bad, game play was and is still the same as it was when it was released in 2001 ) however PGR4 on 360 was the best car racing sim until now. I have downloaded GRID on PC and it is simply amazing- 60fps with everything on high 1900x1200. The replays are unbelievable and driving the cars with a forcefeedback steering wheel is incredible. Nice work Codemasters.
sidney1980 wrote at 13:07 on 29 May 2008
couldnt agree with u more jason. i have owned pretty much every racing game 2 since my 1st NES many years ago!! gt5 prologue is stuck in a time warp as apart from looks, is still the same game! i love pgr4, forza2, sega rally 2 name the best at the moment. grid beats em all in almost every respect. replays r out of this world! 2 b honest, i never expected anything less from codies.. ive loved all their racers since toca touring cars back in 1997. also, grid only feels like an arcade racer with assists on. turn em off 4 a proper sim experience! love it!
metal_basher wrote at 11:58 on 30 May 2008
The graphics of this and GT5 are no match.. (obviously..) .. but gameplay, they are both fun in their own ways.. (just dont be stupid and match the graphics of those two games.. GT5 is by far the best looking car game created to date.
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